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International Criminal and Humanitarian Law Clinic

The Clinique

The Clinic is a university-based activity led by law student teams under the direct supervision of law professors. It offers support, legal research and drafting work to institutions, lawyers, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and victims of human rights violations in the context of files or legal initiatives pertaining to international criminal, humanitarian and human rights law.

Issues at the core of humanity’s concerns

International criminal law and international humanitarian law tend to invigorate the deeply social and human dimensions of international law. These disciplines have been the object of some of the international community’s most important investments of the past decades. With the creation of the United Nation’s ad hoc international criminal tribunals in 1993 and 1994 as a response to Former Yugoslavia’s and Rwanda’s conflicts, international criminal law has truly been resurrected. It aims at ensuring greater repression and prosecution of crimes that compromise peace and international security, so that those who bear the greatest responsibility for atrocities inflicted on civilians or protected persons during armed conflict or in connection with crimes of genocide and crimes against humanity will not remain unpunished.

These disciplines thus have been the object of renewed interest within law schools and for a rapidly growing number of jurists. It is truly in the combination of the theoretical dimensions of these bodies of law and the practical training offered with our partners that International Criminal and Humanitarian Law Clinic of Laval University’s Faculty of Law (ICHLC) finds its purpose.

Training future lawyers through practical teachings

While promoting the acquisition of academic knowledge in the fields of international criminal law, humanitarian and human rights law, the Clinic primarily intends to encourage students to develop practical hands-on experience as well as to understand and apply highly complex and abstract fundamental legal principles. By allowing them to work on real cases, side-by-side with experienced practitioners and renowned national and international institutions, participating students are given the opportunity to assess the social impacts of international law through clinical legal education.

Finding a calling through clinical legal education

By acquiring practical experience in international criminal and humanitarian law, participating students will be able to further assess their capacity and interest to pursue a career or graduate studies in these areas of the law. The Clinic offers students the opportunity to work in a multicultural environment, which favours the development of professional skills and humane qualities. By introducing the students to these fields of law by means of theoretical and practical teachings, the Clinic aims at giving them the tools and personal interest to further develop strong theoretical and practical knowledge on their own. The Clinic also offers students a unique opportunity to gain practical experience in international law.